Pokémon: ‘Unleash Unova’s Legendary Elite’

Strategy on Zekrom and Reshiram.

The penultimate Legendary Pokémon Celebration distributions feature Zekrom and Reshiram, incredible Legendary Pokémon originally discovered in the Unova region. Both Pokémon boast rarely seen attacks, unusual type combinations, special Abilities, striking looks, and great stats. Details about how to add these amazing beings to your team are available at Pokemon.com/Legendary.

Zekrom and Reshiram are two of the most effective offensive Pokémon around. Witnessing Legendary Pokémon unleash their awesome power is among the most awe-inspiring parts of the Pokémon world, and these two embody that fantasy better than most. Both further build the mystique by getting great mileage out of their most iconic attacks, even in matches against other players. Read on for some tips on how to really shift these Pokémon into high gear.

Training Tips

The Pokémon you receive will be different depending on which game you’re playing. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Sun players will receive Zekrom, while Pokémon Ultra Moon and Pokémon Moon players will receive Reshiram instead. You’ll get only one of these Pokémon via distribution, but you can catch the other in the Ultra Wormhole if you’re playing Pokémon Ultra Sun or Pokémon Ultra Moon.

The Pokémon you receive will be higher level and know stronger moves with Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon, and they’ll be holding a super-rare Gold Bottle Cap. They’ll also be Lv. 100—perfect for Hyper Training. If you visit Mr. Hyper at the Hau’oli City Shopping Mall and present him with a Gold Bottle Cap, you can instantly max out your Legendary Pokémon’s individual strengths. That quickly gets one big element of preparing for battle out of the way.

Even though your Pokémon won’t need any more Exp. Points, you should still take it into battle to train its base stats. Both Zekrom and Reshiram have capable stats across the board, but Zekrom excels at unleashing physical attacks, while Reshiram has stronger special attacks. You’ll probably want to maximize the key offensive stat of both Pokémon, which means an Adamant Nature (which promotes Attack growth at the expense of Special Attack) and Attack training for Zekrom, while for Reshiram you’ll want to train its Special Attack and look for a Modest Nature (the reverse of Adamant) instead. Most Trainers opt to finish their training with a mix of HP and Speed—both Pokémon are naturally a bit quicker than the popular Dusk Mane Necrozma, so you may want to train them in Speed enough to maintain their advantage. Read more about training here.

Don’t forget that you can help these high-level Pokémon relearn moves they’d normally have learned if they had leveled up if you bring a Heart Scale to Madam Memorial in the Pokémon Center on Mount Lanakila. You can collect Heart Scales easily by visiting the restaurants across Alola.

Strike with Lightning

The Legendary Pokémon Zekrom provides some unique options for offense that make it very fun to use. Most Electric-type Pokémon perform best with special attacks, but Zekrom is best used as a physical attacker. One of its best attacks is Bolt Strike, a physical Electric-type attack with 130 Power, 85 accuracy, and a chance of inflicting paralysis. Zekrom’s Teravolt Ability is the same as Reshiram’s Turboblaze—both allow the Legendary Pokémon’s attacks to ignore most defensive Abilities—but Zekrom benefits more because there’s no Fire-type equivalent of Lightning Rod. Sidestepping this otherwise troublesome Ability is a huge asset in Double Battles, where other Electric types have to worry about their attacks being redirected and negated.

Zekrom and Reshiram perform very similarly in battle. Both have an incredible arsenal of attacks matching their types, but like most other Legendary Pokémon, they also share the inability to learn many attacks from other types. Start out by teaching Zekrom Bolt Strike and Outrage, which is more accurate than Draco Meteor but comes with a different drawback—the user is locked into the attack for 2–3 turns and becomes confused afterward. Outrage’s more troublesome drawback makes Zekrom a great candidate for Dragonium Z, which gives you one big consequence-free swing. Stone Edge is a better tertiary attack for Zekrom than any special attack Reshiram has available, but it covers few enough additional Pokémon that supportive moves like Hone Claws, Toxic, Roost, and Substitute are usually the way to go.

In Double Battles, Zekrom could benefit by adding the vital supportive moves Protect and Tailwind, keeping your choice of attacks with the same type attack bonus, but many Trainers have been using it a little differently in the early weeks of the 2019 Pokémon Video Game Championships. Most of the chosen few Zekrom fanatics have opted to give it a Choice Scarf or Choice Band to hold and focused completely on offense. Rock Slide is worth considering for this sort of strategy, and you’ll definitely want to use Dragon Claw instead of Outrage either way—Outrage’s drawbacks are just too much to overcome in Double Battles.

The more aggressive Zekrom strategy can be especially effective if you teach it Fusion Bolt and pair it with a partner that knows Fusion Flare in Double Battles. If one Pokémon uses Fusion Bolt or Fusion Flare immediately before another uses the other move, it will double the power of the second attack! A Smeargle trained to be just a bit quicker than Zekrom can be a great partner for this strategy even though its own Fusion Flare attack won’t exactly be dealing Legendary Pokémon levels of damage.

Blue Fire?!

In many ways, Reshiram is the Legendary Dragon-type Pokémon that Trainers might have dreamed up in their own imaginations. It can learn many impressive special moves and has the Special Attack stat to use them with authority. Its type combination of Fire and Dragon is one that many fans longed to see in action for years. It’s also one of only three Pokémon (along with White Kyurem and Smeargle) able to learn two outrageous Fire-type attacks—Fusion Flare (100 Power and accuracy) and Blue Flare (130 Power, 85 accuracy, and a 20 percent chance to burn the target).

Trainers looking to show off Reshiram in Single Battles typically have it use hit-and-run tactics, so consider having it hold Choice Specs or a Life Orb to maximize the damage of each blow. Blue Flare enables the biggest blasts among Fire-type attacks, while Draco Meteor lets Reshiram utilize its other type nearly as well (but be careful with the move’s secondary effect, which will lower Reshiram’s Special Attack by two stages). Reshiram is a little light on powerful attacks from other types, so consider finishing its arsenal with supportive moves like Roost, Tailwind, Toxic, or Defog if you don’t opt for Choice Specs.

If you’re using Reshiram in a Double Battle, you’re probably playing in a GS Cup format like this year’s Video Game Championships rules. Reshiram isn’t one of the most commonly selected Pokémon in these formats, but it can be a powerful contributor, especially in this year’s Sun and Moon Series formats. Protect and Tailwind are both much more integral moves in Double Battles than Single Battles, but Draco Meteor remains the best Dragon-type attack available. You can tailor your choice of Fire-type attack to your preferences—Blue Flare is powerful but somewhat unreliable, Heat Wave can hit both foes, and Fusion Flare is perfectly accurate. You may even want to opt for two Fire-type attacks and drop Draco Meteor—Dragon-type attacks just aren’t what they used to be with so many Fairy types floating around!

We hope these powerful Pokémon help you blow out your foes in battle. You can find more information about upcoming distributions at Pokemon.com/Legendary, and you can check out the list of all ongoing Pokémon distributions to make sure you’re caught up. Don’t forget to check out more Pokémon TCG and video game articles, strategy, and tournament analysis at Pokemon.com/Strategy.